Today, in an easy-to-read graphic, we show you the 27 states in which you can marry your first cousin, unless you’re gay — along with the five states (plus D.C.) in which you can marry your first cousin, gay or not, and the two states in which you can marry your beloved, gay or straight, but not your first cousin.

Of course, we are not advocating marrying your first cousin,merely pointing out the ludicrousness of laws banning same-sex marriage.

Mississippi went even further by eliminating the test for Syphilis as a requirement for marriage. What are these people thinking?

babyboopMay 21, 2013 at 6:57 pm

Mississippi does not allow marriage between cousins

cableairmanJanuary 28, 2013 at 12:55 am

I really doubt that this information is correct. Oklahoma it is not a state that it is legal to marry your first cousin. I find this offensive to put up this false information and skew your information to make something look like its not.

I married my cousin. After researching Alan H Bittles among others, we determined that ignorance rules in regard to cousin marriage. There are actual scientific advantages as well marrying and bearing offspring with cousins. There is a lower rate of bodily rejection and an increase of purged genetic abnormalities. We are WASP Americans of Irish descent. We didn't experience the Westermark effect (didn't grow up around each other) but did have a strong GSA. 20% of all marriages in the world are of first cousins. Einsteins parents were first cousins as were he and his wife. Darwin married his first cousin…
The West has this ignorant outlook that stems from faulty eugenics study and also to keep families from maintaining power and wealth by maintaining assets within their clan unlike the British and other related European power families. The stigma was attached to the rural families because they had little access to healthcare, flourine (advanced water treatment) especially before the invention of the automobile.
If you peel the onion back you will find there is no real reason to ostracize cousin marriage. It is sad that we are compared to gay marriage which has nothing at all to do with hetero consanguineous relationships from second degree and beyond relationships. It is theorized that 80% of all marriages from the beginning of the practice have been first cousins. 200,000 first cousins wed in the US annually. Repeated first cousin marriage over multiple generations (double first cousins) are another story.
The US is archaic in practice and thought when it comes to us.
Cousin marriage has been common with humans since the dawn of our race.
Do you think Darwin would consider a same sex partnership part of natural selection? One that cannot self perpetuate?
It has been proven in Iceland , which had ample medical and marriage records and a high percentage of first cousin couples that bore more children than non related couples.
Birth defects with first cousins are equal to the same as any 34 yr old woman in an unrelated marriage. Get real, and wake up. Do your research. I am tired of being compared to gays and cannot understand how hetero can be compared to homo in a western country that ostracizes (half of the states) cousin marriage, are used as a tool to help gays draw support.
It is even close to the same union.
It does however shoe how ignorant you can be by making this comparison. Go use someone else to help drive your cause.

jbuhaDecember 25, 2013 at 2:49 am

I absolutely agreed with you gotitbad. Lot Married his daughter then God blessed him and it is far different for same sex marriage